The Beast That Played With Dolls
by EightSixEightSeven
Summary: Chicago, Illinois 1998. The City basks in the sunny glow of both a heatwave and a new religion, but is pastor John Cleaver Shillaker all he seems? Teaming up with an old friend, the Doctor seeks the answer...
1. Episode 1

**Doctor Who**

**THE BEAST THAT PLAYED WITH DOLLS**

**By Alex Lee Rankin**

_**Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, June 1998. **_

Robin Baxter winced as he stepped out onto the doorstep of the small shop and reached into his shirt pocket. Slipping on his sunglasses, which he fancied a little vainly made him look like Bono, he crossed the road and got back into his car. "Sold out," he said as he dropped a newspaper into the lap of the woman sitting next to him in the passenger seat. "It's the same everywhere, not an ice cream to be found in any of the small shops. Everyone's going mad for them in this heat. We'll have to go to _Wal-Mart _or something."

The woman had picked up the paper and was reading the front page. "All right," she agreed. "It's better than sitting here with our tongues hanging out." Her throat sounded pretty dry, which was unsurprising in the current climate. She sat silently after that, reading the paper and saving her throat from further discomfort.

"Music?" asked Robin.

"Mm-hm," was his companion‟s only reply. That was good enough for him, though, and the sound of the Rolling Stones filled the car, the wound-down windows allowing it to filter into the street as the dark blue Audi A4 pulled into it and headed in the direction of the nearest major supermarket. As he drove, Robin thought about the paper he had just bought. He hadn't looked at it himself and he was curious about recent events. "Anything about the Circle?"

The woman shook her head. "Nuh."

"You'll have to be a bit more coherent than that, Sarah," Robin chuckled. "I do sympathise, trust me, but I can't stop talking just because my throat is dry."

Sarah screwed up her mouth. "You wouldn't stop talking if someone cut your tongue out, Bax," she said irascibly.

"Oh, bloody well excuse me!" Robin retorted. "I'll just shut up then, shall I? Never mind how grateful you don't seem bothered with being for the fact that I paid extra so that you could come with me on my holiday to Chicago, sacrificing as I did so the pleasure of having it entirely to myself."

With a heavy sigh Sarah put the paper back in her lap. "I'm sorry, Bax," she said sincerely. "This heat's what's making me snappy." She picked up the paper again. "There's nothing in here about the Circle, though. It's funny: last week it was front-page news and you couldn't walk down even a backstreet without hearing someone talking about it. Now all the newspapers are interested in seems to be Brad Pitt and the Superbowl."

"That's America for you, Sarah," Robin smirked. "If you wanted consistency, this was _not _the place to come." He joined the main road and accelerated a little. "So apart from celebrity gossip and sport, are there any useful titbits that we should be considering?"

"I don't think so," Sarah replied with a shake of her head. "It's literally nothing to write home about. I doubt Mr Strickland would give a toss about half of this rubbish, let alone agree to put it in the magazine."

Robin laughed at the reference to the editor of the magazine for which they were both working as freelance contracts. He put on a thick Irish accent to imitate the burly, blustering executive and started to mock him over the music. "The public doesn't want to buy this magazine to read about what shoes are worn by the celebrity guests at film premieres. If they want that they can buy _OK _Magazine or _Hello_. Our target market, as you know, is the unusual! The weird, the strange, the bizarre! The horrible penny-sized furry creatures that pop out of my belly button!"

Sarah howled with laughter, her eyes watering. She almost didn't see it until the last second, when in an instant the laughter ended. "Stop!" she shouted urgently.

"But what about the ice creams?" Robin protested.

"Sod the ice creams, Robin!" Sarah barked. "Stop the car!"

Robin pulled the car over sensibly, refusing to become a Hollywood cliché by screeching to a halt in the middle of the open road, and stopped it. He turned off the music. "What the hell's the matter with you, Sarah?" he demanded. But he found himself talking to an empty seat and an open passenger door.

Police Boxes were British. They were also obsolete. In the 1950s and 1960s, it would be easy to find one on most street corners around such places as London, with less than a hundred yards between them probably, but the odds of finding one straddling the dividing line between mowed grass and pavement in a street in downtown Chicago in the 1990s were so remote that they bordered upon the ridiculous. There was just no way that any such thing could ever be possible. Unless of course your name happened to be Sarah-Jane Smith.

**EPISODE ONE**

"These are British, aren't they?" Robin Baxter frowned as he slipped quietly up behind Sarah, looking the battered blue Police Box up and down in curiosity. "And out-of-date."

Sarah-Jane nodded. "I was just thinking that," she murmured. She was stepping around it, apparently to examine its other sides. For a moment she disappeared, but then she completed the circuit and emerged from behind it. "The doors face away from the road," she observed with a tiny smile and there seemed to be a glimmer in her eye of which Robin didn't know what to make.

"They normally face into the street, don't they?" he pontificated. "For access."

Sarah decided the time had come to share a game with her friend. Like her, Robin was a journalist working freelance and taking only the contracts that piqued his interest and turning down the rest, at leisure to do so because he was sought after on account of an excellent reputation. The two of them had taken contracts with a magazine whose pages were dedicated to extraordinary discoveries and new inventions and such and when they had met in the office they'd struck up an immediate rapport. Robin wasn't bad-looking; indeed, it was Sarah's observation that he looked a little like a young Bono that had made him buy the sunglasses, and he was certainly charismatic without being creepily over-charming. He had a merciless sense of humour and a tendency to respond with slap-in-the-face flippancy. He was intelligent, too, experienced in many different cultures, open to all kinds of new ideas and remarkably intuitive for a man, and on top of that he spoke a brace of languages and had all sorts of useful skills. All in all he had a lot going for him and despite being in his late thirties he never let his experiences age him, although they did seem to make him wiser. Sarah had dated him for a time and he'd shown a real flair for the unusual by coming up with such date ideas as abseiling down an office block and visiting a shooting range. He'd impressed her by being both a daredevil and a crack shot. The dating had gone on for about nine months and they'd finally agreed that they saw far too much of each other, given that they were together at work and then together on dates, and that it wasn't good for their friendship. They stopped dating and intentionally saw less of one another for most of the time, but in the spring that year the magazine's offices had suffered a flood and holiday time had been afforded the staff while repairs and refurbishments were carried out. Allen Michael Strickland, the magazine's editor, had suggested that despite being on holiday the journalists should keep their eyes peeled for unusual things and new ideas and possibly even investigate them with a view to contributing to a bumper comeback publication. Most had agreed it was the best way to go, including Sarah, but not Robin. Robin had preferred to just go on holiday and have a good time. He'd bought a ticket to America and gone round to knock on a certain door and give his Sarah-Jane a kiss goodbye before the commencement of his six weeks' absence. When he'd told her, she'd just come off the Internet and was gushing about a story in a newspaper about an organisation called the Circle, who had given a man who had been permanently crippled in an accident the total use of his legs again and were promising similar to anyone willing to convert to their mysterious religion. And of course, they were in Chicago. Robin, bless his heart, had needed no persuasion whatsoever. The moment she mentioned it he had borrowed her computer and booked another ticket on the same flight. By making a few phone calls to dear friends who owed him favours he'd even managed to rearrange the seating so that they could sit together. The flight was early the next morning and for convenience (and perhaps reward) they had spent the night together before embarking on their adventure. Upon arrival in the city they found that no one seemed interested in the Circle anymore and no one even knew where it was, and at first Sarah had thought that the Internet article had been a hoax and she had come all this way for nothing, but now things were different. Now this box was here and Sarah-Jane Smith _knew _that something was afoot. Turning to Robin, her face beaming as she clasped her hands behind her back she said, "So, we have a 1960s British Police Box, not in Britain and not in the Sixties." She announced it as if she were pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. "It's aligned in the wrong position and awkwardly placed, neither fully on the grass nor on the pavement."

Robin knew their special "Holmes and Watson" game instantly. It was something that they alone shared on the occasions they had partnered each other on investigative assignments. They had swapped the roles depending on which of them knew the most about the subject, the better informed playing Holmes to the learner's Watson. "So It's not a genuine Police Box," he nodded firmly, astounding Sarah with the speed at which he'd reached that conclusion. "It's too serious an anachronism for that." He ambled around it as Sarah had done and popped back up. "It's not part of someone's collection of antiques or curios – no one who collected things like this would be irresponsible enough to just leave it sitting here. It's not a practical joke or an art statement; in its current location and arrangement it'd have no value as either. So It's not supposed to be here. It's here by chance, or perhaps coincidence. Maybe even accident."

Sarah was truly impressed. "Now," she grinned. "Put the flat of your hand on it. Anywhere will do."

It suddenly occurred to Robin that his ex-girlfriend, colleague and occasional torturer knew what this thing was and what it was doing here. How could she? Was she in the habit of stumbling into anachronistic obsolete communications devices? If she were then what wasn't she telling him, or worse what had she been keeping from him all the time they'd known each other? Unsure for the first time whether to trust her, he risked it and carefully pressed his palm to the flat vertical surface of the box. Instantly he snatched it back. "Shit!" he gasped, near-breathless. "It's alive or something!" He rounded on Sarah. "What the hell is it? It's not… normal."

Sarah nodded eagerly, knowing that with a little pushing Robin Baxter could crack this one all on his own. "Go on," she urged him.

"It's… weird, improper, out of place, anomalistic… It's…" he stopped, afraid of the word.

Sarah stared into his eyes, almost frying his brain. "Yes?"

"Alien," he said finally, swallowing hard. He stared past her at the box. "It's alien. An alien artefact disguised as an Earth artefact, but the owner either made a mistake in its research and visited after the age of the Police Box or _did _visit that period and forgot, or else was unable, to change the disguise."

"You seem remarkably well-informed," said a new voice. "Have we met before?"

It was him. Sarah knew it without thinking. He didn't look anything like either of the variations she knew, but there was no doubt about it. This one was tall and handsome – _very _handsome, actually, in an ITV post-watershed bodice-ripper sort of way – with long chestnut waves that framed his chiselled features and soft watery eyes. He wore a bottle-green velvet frockcoat, a waistcoat, cravat, smart trousers and brown loafers. She knew he couldn't see her because she was obscured by his ship and quickly she stepped out, feeling like a little girl greeting her daddy from the train as he returned from the army. "Hallo Doctor!" she almost squeaked, suppressing a giggle.

The man's eyes widened and with it his smile. His arms were suddenly flung open. "Sarah!" he gasped. "Sarah-Jane Smith, of all the people I could've bumped into!"

Sarah-Jane fell into the Doctor's embrace and for a moment all time seemed to stop. Then it resumed again and she looked up at him. "It's so good to see you!" she gushed. "And look at you, so different! Which one are you? How many times have you changed since I last saw you?"

"I imagine your prestigious magazine would call me the Model Eight," said the Doctor. "If I allowed them – or any human organisations for dispensing information to the public – to know anything about me."

Eight! She could barely believe it. She had once believed there was only one Doctor, but then she had seen him die, and when he had died he had been reborn somehow in an entirely new body, awakening as a version more alive than she had ever known him. And then she had left him a while later and sometime after that been spirited away to a sort of open-air arena created by the Doctor's own people and met the version that had died, which she thought was the original version, but also a couple of past versions, a future version and other companions. She had discovered then that the first version for her had been the third for him, and the latest of the variations she'd met up to that point had been the fifth, though she only met him briefly. Now there were eight of him! But that didn't matter. She didn't care what face he wore; this was the Doctor, her best friend, her angel of mercy, the love of her life. He could have sixteen heads and she would care for them all with reverence. "What are you doing in Chicago?" she asked him excitedly.

"I'm investigating the slightly perturbing behaviour of an American religious cult who call themselves the Circle," he informed her, almost causing her to gape. "Care to join me?" He raised in one hand a small object that looked like an Art Deco silver pendant on a chain. He had redesigned the TARDIS key.

**I**

**BURIAL**

"Children of God," the speech – or perhaps sermon – began. "We stand here today not to witness the passing of a man dead into the Earth, nor to commend his spirit unto the Angels, but in truth to give him over into the custody of the true God that he may be resurrected and made immortal, as shall we all be. We ask nothing of God that He has not chosen to give us. We want nothing from Him that He does not want us to have. He has promised us, each and every one of us who is faithful to Him, eternal life, and we shall accept it with our arms open."

The speaker was imposing, tall and broad and black and bald, wearing designer sunglasses and a designer suit. He stood amidst a considerable flock of people, all organised into a circle of which he was part, the round symbol the heart of their religion. He had not always been so erudite, so well-dressed and well-groomed, so articulate and commanding. There was a time when John Cleaver Shillaker had been a ghetto thug growing up in one of the roughest corners of the urban jungle, drifting from street to street with a gun in the back of his jeans, looking around for vulnerable women with handbags for the taking, cars that could be easily cracked open and any local guy who would give him twenty dollars to deliver some coke or speed. But things had changed for "Jay-See" when he had decided to take a little walk at around three in the morning after something that rocked his whole tenement tumbled him out of bed. It had woken a few other people up too, but most had just looked out of the windows, done a bit of shouting and swearing and then gone back to bed. Jay-See had been curious, though, and he had gone outside into the hot night wearing just shorts and trainers, the full head of hair he'd had at the time sweating and itching as he followed the pinkish red glow in the sky to where it met the ground. The journey had been long and had taken him almost halfway across the city, to the harbour where he finally saw it. The metal object floated in the water, glowing and steaming. Its descent had slowed since it had passed over his tenement somehow and no one in the local area had been disturbed by its whoosh or its splash. It was a fallen star or something, and it belonged to him, to Jay-See. He sat on a jetty wondering how to bring it in and lay claim to it proper, and about what he might do with it once it was his. But then something happened that changed his whole way of thinking forever.

It opened up.

Somehow, from some invisible seam, a door appeared and the fallen star's occupant emerged from within. Jay-See had been scared and wanted to run, but he couldn't move. He was rooted to the spot, his eyes locked on the emissary of Heaven walking on water towards him. It came to him and told him not to fear. It promised him eternal life on the condition that he favoured it with his unconditional obedience, and then touched him and unlocked his mind. Now no one called him Jay-See. He was Shillaker, or Mr Shillaker, or Holy Guardian, and no one argued with him. Everyone wanted to be his friend and earn the favours of God. Everyone wanted to be immortal.

"I give you now," Shillaker continued, "the testimony of the first True Convert, Mr Lee Waters."

There was raucous applause as both Shillaker and a smaller, older white man left the circle and exchanged places. Waters was smiling and his skin glowed in spite of his age. "Children of God," Lee beamed at all the other smiling faces in Shillaker's congregation. "I stand before you a saved man, a redeemed man, a forgiven man. I sinned, my friends, oh yes, and I paid the price. The wife that I abandoned for my younger lover sabotaged my car and I lost the use of my legs. The doctors said I would never walk again, but now, my friends, I can _dance_!" And he performed a little jig to demonstrate the fact. Everyone laughed. "The Holy Guardian took me in my wheelchair to the Almighty Star and laid me down to sleep beside it. When I woke next morning my chair was gone, but I did not need it. Instead I stood up and walked home!"

The response was a roar of applause and cries of elation. Waters swapped places with Shillaker again and he resumed the funeral service, looking down at the torpedo-shaped black coffin that God had insisted should be uniform for the exalted dead. "And our Lord promises the same for all other True Converts. This man, Carl Rutger, who lies in his coffin ready to be laid in the ground, shall also be redeemed. The Lord can reverse physical paralysis, genetic disease, mental illness and even death – yes, my children, death itself can be held back!" He took in more applause. "So we shall say goodbye to our brother Carl today in the knowledge that he will tomorrow be returned to us."

Lieutenant Abrahams shook his head and took the cigarette butt out of his mouth, dropping it on the gravel path and stubbing it with his foot to make sure it was out. He glanced at the young female cop standing a couple of inches to his left. "It's gotta be bullshit, right?" he asked her in a gravelly voice, his tone making him sound bored, like he was one of these "I seen it all" cops.

Sergeant Lin nodded. "Probably, Sir," she agreed. "But a lot of religions believe in reincarnation."

"Do you?" asked Abrahams.

"Nah," shrugged Lin. "I'm not really a religious gal."

Abrahams grunted and looked away from her. It wouldn't do her good to see him smiling. Lin was a good-looking woman, smart and adept, determined and ready to take on whatever was necessary to get ahead. She'd go a long way in the force. He resumed his gruff look and turned to face the short but stocky Japanese-American girl. "So, dead today, back tomorrow?"

"Like you said, Sir," Lin nodded. "Bullshit."

Upon crossing the threshold of the TARDIS, Sarah-Jane had felt the nostalgic tingle of the slight dimensional displacement that came with entering a box small enough to be transported on the back of a small truck to find a room that would have made a small mansion burst at the seams, and expected other familiarity to accompany it. But the interior was different – extremely different. For one thing it was darker and had a more Gothic feel about it, the white and shining plasticky-feel walls with their deep-set illuminated roundels were gone and somehow replaced by what looked for all the world like, and felt for all the world like, but couldn't possibly be, granite. There were also what looked and felt like wood panelling and brass fittings, Axminster carpet and even iron girders. The girders supported something that _was _familiar, despite the equally drastic changes to its appearance. The six-sided control console was now mounted on a dais and looked as though it was made of wood and brass, like something out of an H G Wells novel, and the centre column was infinitely more impressive, now reaching up to the ceiling, or rather the dark and blurred space where a ceiling ought to have been, and filled with glowing crystal rods. The Doctor had by this time hopped up onto the dais and was adjusting the controls. Sarah left him to it, knowing what he was like, as she wandered past the console to an area that seemed to have been converted into a lounge-cum-library, complete with bookcases, comfortable armchairs and a small sideboard on which was perched a loaded tea-tray and an old record player. "Help yourselves to tea," the Doctor called without looking up from the controls.

"Tea?" Robin breathed, staring around the impossible place he'd just walked into. "Sarah, what the hell is this? I mean, when we were playing the game I thought you were having me on, played along with the joke, but…" He frowned as if truly perturbed by the reality. "This is crazy."

"It's no joke," replied Sarah as she picked up the two newspapers left beside the tea tray. One of them was the same issue of _USA Today _that Robin had given her in the car and the one underneath it was a copy of _The Guardian _from 1966, with Hugh McIlvanney's article proudly announcing that England had just won the World Cup football tournament. She smiled. So typical of the Doctor to fall into role, to try and be English just because his alien form had chosen the accent. Sarah imagined that somehow the Doctor's body knew what it was doing when it regenerated, carefully picking little details with each change, experimenting on a superficial level but sticking to things that it liked and found comfortable: the male gender, Caucasian skin and English (or at least British) accent, for example. And hair. The Doctor always had hair. Of course it might just be likely that these things _couldn't _change and that in fact they were natural to him. Perhaps he didn't have an English accent at all. Perhaps it was a Gallifreyan one and the two were just remarkably similar. The universe, as Sarah knew, was a big place, and on her travels with the Doctor she'd met all manner of creatures with voices of many varieties, from the toneless mechanical buzz of the Cybermen to the stressed whisper-shout (for want of a better way to describe it) of the Zygons and more. Maybe Time Lords had accents that sounded like English ones and when the Doctor had first visited Earth and grown attached to it he had chosen Great Britain as his Earthly home because he liked the similarity and then the culture had rubbed off on him too. Whatever the case, changes to the TARDIS notwithstanding, the evidence of the Doctor's touch abounded in everything Sarah could see in the room. She glanced at Robin, who was still dumbfounded. "This is all real," she told him. "What you thought was some sort of novelty vibrating Police Box is far more alien than you could've imagined. This room, and everything in it, including us, can travel through Time."

"Bollocks," snorted Robin.

"Language, Mr Baxter, please," the Doctor called sternly from the console. "Remember you are my honoured guest."

Robin glanced up at the strange man, a little knocked off-balance. "Sorry," he said. Then he turned back to Sarah. "Time travel? Are you serious?"

Sarah nodded. "Come on, Robin," she said sincerely. "Am I the fanciful kind? The sort of girl who'd make something like this up? If you're not convinced by the inside of this room that the Doctor really does belong to an advanced alien culture, then touch him."

"_Touch _him?" Robin didn't know what to make of that. "Touch him? What the hell do you mean, touch him?"

Sarah faced him and undid the top three buttons of her blouse. "Touch me."

At first Robin didn't know how to react. He blushed. "Er, Sarah…"

She took his hand and placed it flat on her chest. "What can you feel?" she asked, staring into his eyes with a look that could turn a man to stone.

"Um, your bra?" Robin answered.

Sarah scowled at him. "Don't be such a clown."

"Sorry," he smiled. "Your heart. I can feel it beating. I used to listen to it quite a lot; found it comforting."

Sarah smiled back. She liked that thought. Gently she moved his hand away and started to fasten her buttons. "Now do it to him," she said.

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"

The Doctor was suddenly beside him, shirt open. He took Robin's hand and pressed it down, first on the left side of his chest and then the right. "How am I?" he grinned.

"Jesus Christ…" breathed Robin.

"Actually I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said. "Though that mistake has been made before, much to the detriment of the mortician." And he did up his buttons and sprang back onto the dais. Looking over the console, he adjusted a lever and a couple of dials and looked up. "Well, we're here."

Robin whirled round to face the man with two hearts, still struggling to accept the fact that such a man existed. "Here?"

"June 4th, 1998," the Doctor said. "And a slight location change so as to be less incongruous."

"The fourth?" Robin echoed. "It's the eleventh. I should know – Sarah and I didn't even get here until the ninth!"

Sarah stepped around him. "I told you, Bax," she said. "Time travel. Go and buy a paper if you Don't believe me. Doctor?"

The Doctor hopped off the dais and linked arms with her, making Robin slightly jealous despite his bewilderment. "Will your friend be joining us?"

"You bet I will," Robin almost gasped. "I don't think I can get my head around this place. I just want to get outside and go back to my car, drive it to the hotel and hide under my pillows till I wake up and discover it was all a dream."

"Oh," the Doctor said, seeming a little crestfallen. Then he brightened. "Well good luck finding your car. It doesn't get here for five days!"

Jennifer Rutger finished typing up the letter and clicked Print. As the letter printed she stood up and left her desk for a moment, having spotted a movement just outside the window of her office that looked out onto the shared office space beyond, used by the other admin staff. She pulled open her door. "Neal!" she called. The wiry administrative supervisor strode over to her, his long legs covering the office floor in a couple of seconds, brushing a few wisps of untidy sandy-coloured hair from his face and slightly adjusting the position of his wire-rimmed glasses for comfort. "What can I do for you, Jen?" he asked casually.

"Why weren't you at dad's funeral?" she asked him with a sharp-edged frown. "Didn't you get your invitation?"

Neal Grover sighed heavily. "Jennifer, please," he protested. "You know I always had the greatest respect for your dad, we were friends, but I just can't go in for all that Circle stuff. I never asked you to convert to Catholic."

"And you know I'd do it if you did," Jennifer replied scornfully. "I didn't join the Circle either. I'm like you, think they're a bunch of cranks, but dad's religion was important to him. He truly believed he'd be able to come back, a new man with a new future. Maybe we don't give a damn about Shillaker and his sermons, but dad did and you could have been there for him. You _should _have been there."

"I'm sorry," Neal answered the charge glumly, hanging his head. "You're right. He'd have wanted me there."

"Well would you visit the grave?" asked Jennifer. "Please? Go put some flowers on it or something."

"Sure. I'll do it as soon as I get out of here."

"Thank you."

"Are you working late again tonight?"

"Uh-huh."

Neal straightened up. "Gee, he really never lets up, huh?"

Jennifer gave a wry smile. "He's gotta find something to do with his spare time." She checked her watch. "Speaking of time, I gotta go. You know how he gets about people laying around. Oh, and Neal?"

He was returning to his desk by the time she'd finished speaking, knowing his place, and he glanced back at her. "Yeah?"

She quickly darted over to him and lowered her voice. "There's a couple of British people here and they're making him a little edgy. Can you run a check on a Sarah-Jane Smith, possibly located in the Greater London area, and known associates?"

"Sure," said Neal. "I'll get back to you by three."

"Thanks honey." Jennifer kissed Neal's cheek and returned to her office, closing the door behind her. She picked up the letter that had just printed, folded it neatly, sealed it into the appropriate addressed envelope and slipped it into her out-tray, knowing the tray would be emptied shortly by the girl who collected all the outgoing mail. She was about to sit at the desk when the intercom buzzed. She pressed the button. "Yes, sir?"

A smooth, clipped English voice came over the speaker. "Miss Rutger," it said. "I'd like to see you in my office at once."

"Of course, sir," Jennifer said, nodding more by instinct than intent as she knew he couldn't see her, and opened the other door behind her desk. She closed it behind her and locked it, putting the key back on its chain around her neck and concealing it in the cleavage of her breasts, obscured by her camisole. She climbed the thirteen steps and knocked on the black door at the top. It swung open and she kicked off her shoes to walk on the tiles in her stockinged feet as per the rules of the Upper Office. The door closed behind her, shutting out her shoes as if demonstrating that they were unwelcome and she padded over to the swimming pool. Her boss, as usual, was in the pool. He never left it as far as she knew. "Good afternoon, sir," she smiled politely.

"I think we'll dispense with the formalities for the present, Miss Rutger," said the boss. "Have you passed on my instructions to Mr Grover?"

"Yes, sir," nodded Jennifer. "We'll have a report no later than fifteen hundred hours."

"Good," said the boss. "Undress and join me."

Without a word, Jennifer removed every stitch of her clothing and climbed down into the pool wearing only her earrings and the key around her neck. She swam to her employer's side. The man in the pool was a good fifteen years older than Jennifer, but his money and influence had overridden his age as a priority. She moved in close and let his arm settle around her, resting her head on his chest. "Is this Sarah person dangerous?" she asked in an almost plaintive voice.

The boss shrugged. "Not in herself," he replied. "But she has been known to be associated with one who may be. But don't worry your pretty little head about it. Just carry on working as normal and let your doting fiancé do the running around and finding out. One way or another we shall soon know where we stand." He smiled down at her. "By the way," he said. "I have decided that the next person to be saved will be Carl Rutger."

Jennifer's eyes lit up. "Daddy? He‟s coming back?"

"Tomorrow," grinned the boss. "A special little gift for the one I love."

She squealed and hugged him tight, head still on his bare chest. It didn't seem to bother her, or even occur to her, that he didn't have a heartbeat.

**II**

**ASCENSION**

Robin staggered out of the same shop where he'd bought the paper for Sarah, clutching another, and almost collapsed on the doorstep. He leaned on the doorframe and caught himself before giving his body a forced shake and stepping down to return to the Doctor and Sarah, who waited on the pavement. "It's the fourth," he said to Sarah with some incredulity. "All the papers in there say the fourth! You know, when I went in there this morning… the morning of the eleventh… the Chinese bloke in there said I'd been in before, in the previous week. I swore to him that I wasn't, that it couldn't have been me, but I lied to him without realising, didn't I? Because it was me he saw last week, wasn't it? Because _this _is last week."

Sarah gently touched his arm. "You get used to it," she smiled kindly.

"I'd better do," Robin replied. "Or else I'll have a bloody breakdown." He looked at the Doctor somewhat wanly. "I'm really sorry, er, Doctor. I've been a bit of a prat."

The Doctor grinned. "Oh, forget it," he said cheerfully. "I've met plenty of those in my time."

Robin was still taking it all in. "So, what exactly is that thing of yours? The Police Box I mean? And why does it look like a Police Box?"

"The conclusions you drew when you were playing your game with Sarah were surprisingly accurate, Mr Baxter," the Doctor explained. "The TARDIS is an advanced craft not of Earth design but disguised as an Earth artefact. The disguise was applied during a visit to London in the 1960s and thereafter didn't change. The disguise is supposed to change automatically but the computer process that scans the TARDIS's location, assimilates local data, determines the most appropriate disguise and applies the skin to the exterior is malfunctioning. I gave up repairing it quite some time ago."

"Please call me Robin," Robin smiled. "Only Sarah doesn't – unless she's annoyed with me or getting maternal or something – and that's because she doesn't want me to remind her of Batman."

The Doctor chuckled. "Robin it is."

"So," Robin continued. "TARDIS. That's an alien word? Sorry if the word "alien" is a bit racist. It's the best word I've got at the moment."

"Oh, not at all," the Doctor chuckled. "I've heard worse and I am definitely foreign to this world. And TARDIS is actually an English acronym. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."

Robin chewed over the word. "Time and…" He looked up. "But that implies…"

The Doctor felt a surge of delight as he saw Robin's eyes widening and gleefully decided to have a go at Sarah's game for himself. It had reminded him of his time with Ace. Poor Ace. "Go on," he prompted.

"It implies," said Robin, "that your Police Box is a temporal anomaly set in a mathematical paradox but still completely workable." He could barely believe the words even as he spoke them. "When I stepped into it earlier it was out in the middle of a street on the eleventh of June, and when I stepped out it was discreetly concealed in an alley behind some disused, shuttered up shops on the fourth. But logically, if the name can be taken at its word – or words – It's capable of visiting literally any place in the universe at literally any point in the history thereof." He gawked at the Doctor, completely astounded. "Is that actually true?"

"Explicitly," nodded the Doctor.

Robin grinned. "I know what I want to do with the rest of my holiday!"

Sarah was smirking, but she held back her humour. "Well, before we start thinking about our leisure time, maybe we could look into the Circle?"

"Oh yeah," said Robin, passing her the paper. "They didn't have the _USA Today_, I'm afraid. Apparently It's late afternoon and the few copies he had sold pretty well in the morning because of all this Circle fuss. Had to make do with a local rag, but John Cleaver Shillaker's on the front page."

Sarah grabbed the paper and looked at the front page eagerly. She had given Robin full details of the Internet article she'd read at home while they were together on the flight and even shown him a picture she'd printed of Shillaker. In spite of himself he'd become quite curious about it and been keen to investigate. The journalist in him, Sarah knew, just like her. "Mr Lee Waters yesterday," she read aloud, "celebrated the receipt of a true miracle by standing and walking for the first time in six years, and he did so with the consummate ease of a man who had walked a thousand miles without a rest. The power behind his miraculous recovery is the closely guarded secret of new-age religious cult the Circle, led by the Reverend John Shillaker. Shillaker informed reporters that the Circle is just another division of the Christian faith and that miracles are for everyone, provided that they choose the Lord's path. Mr Waters, 49, said of his recovery, 'I dance with every step, and everyone who cannot walk or talk or see or hear can have the chance to feel what I feel today, if he has the love of God in his heart.' Mr Waters refused to see an independently-funded medical examiner and so as such no scientific explanation for his recovery has been provided." She regarded the Doctor over the top of the paper. "Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?"

"May I see?" the Doctor asked and Sarah handed him the paper. "Thank you. Yes it does seem a little unlikely." He examined the picture of Shillaker. "And he doesn't look right at all."

"Yeah," added Robin. "I thought he looked a bit shifty for a vicar myself."

"I didn't mean like that," said the Doctor. "There's something about him. I can't place it, but It's just not quite right."

Sarah looked concerned. "Do you think he could be alien?"

The Doctor nodded. "It's possible."

"Bloody hell!" Robin spluttered. "More aliens?"

"There are thousands of non-humans on Earth at this very moment. The cusp of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was a very busy time for tourism on your planet, although few of you actually noticed."

Robin shook his head slowly, releasing a long breath. "Unbelievable," he said. "But of course in the light of my recent discoveries I don't doubt it for a second." He looked up and down the road. "I wish my car were here. I still can't get around the idea that I'm actually going to turn up here in a few days' time, with you!" He looked at Sarah. "There will be two of each of us if you and I are still doing any of this by that time."

The Doctor put the paper in the bin. "Well, I think it's about time we got started, Don't you?" And he stepped out into the road.

"Doctor!" Sarah yelled after him. But it was too late.

The car had hit him.

Memories were good.

Lee Waters lay in his back garden beside the lover half his age that he'd lost the use of his legs for and closed his eyes, smiling at the thought of defeating Candace. Her bitter act of revenge had not lasted and while she languished in jail he walked and drove and danced, raised their children and made love to young, beautiful Molly. He had everything and his spiteful ex-wife had nothing. Even the divorce had been made easier because Candace had gone to prison for an act of extreme violence and Lee had been given everything: the house, both cars, custody of the kids, the business and all the money, not to mention his health insurance payout, which was substantial to say the least. Lee chuckled at the thought of how furious the insurance company would be that they paid out for a permanent disability now that he was cured. But that was nobody's fault. Who could have foreseen the powers that were wielded by John Shillaker? He rolled onto his side and opened his eyes. Molly lay in the sweet, short grass, young and smooth and pale and stunning in her bathing suit. She couldn't tan but that didn't bother him. Her pallor was extremely attractive. He remembered the day they'd met. She had been hitch-hiking on the Interstate when he'd been working the eighteen-wheelers. It had been hot weather and she'd worn a tight tied shirt that showed her belly button and shorts. Her legs had looked so appetising that he'd been unable to sap the urge to stop for her. They'd talked on the long journey, for both of them it transpired a journey home, and learned a lot about one another's lives. Molly, in fact Margaret Anne Shawton, had been a workaholic because of her need to pay for her mother's life-prolonging surgery and hadn't had much time for a love life. She'd signed up for a nationwide dating agency and hooked up with a guy in Detroit, but it hadn't worked out and he had refused to even help her afford her ticket home. She'd been forced to hitch rides and had wound up being dropped off on the Interstate. Her home was Chicago. Lee was an overworked trucker shifting machine parts, loaded down with work, three kids and an unhappy marriage. Candace, his wife, had (in Lee's words) committed adultery four times, each time with a different lover, and had fallen pregnant by one of her lovers. Lee had refused to raise the child he knew was not his own and the marriage had begun then to break up, though the pair had stayed together for the sake of the children that belonged to them both. The revelation of Candace's unfaithfulness, however, had provoked worry in Lee and he feared that not all of his kids were his own. He had them all tested, and it transpired that one of them was not. Aaron was old enough to pack his bags and leave, and he did just that. Candace blamed Lee. Over time, Lee and Molly, who had begun as friends, became closer, and Lee made no secret of the fact that he had moved on. Indeed, as he fell in love with Molly he told Candace honestly that the marriage was over and he was filing for divorce. Filled more with envy of the young, pretty girl's prospects than with any grief over losing Lee, she sabotaged the brakes of his car in an attempt to kill him. The murder attempt failed but left him crippled. Candace was hauled away to the nearest correctional facility that could spare a bed and Molly moved in with Lee and the two kids that were his own, Mary-Louise and Corey. She also continued working in her office to bring money in, to help unemployable Lee now that her mother had finally given up the fight for life. Lee had always been grateful for Molly's compassion and generosity, her sense of duty and her devotion to him and to two children that were not hers, and now that he was fit to go back on the trucks he planned to get his licence back and then start working to pay her back with interest. She would have the life of a queen from now on. Lee's heart swelled as his memories filled it, and he didn't think for one second about the fact that he could not remember that night at the Star; that he could not remember how he had regained his ability to walk.

The Doctor lay sprawled over the bonnet of the car, his arms at full stretch and his fingers touching the windscreen. A short, stocky man clambered out of the car wearing a Mack and cursing. He was balding and had a saggy face from which protruded what was left of a cigarette. He tramped up to the Doctor, who was dazed but otherwise unharmed. Luckily Lin had hit the brakes just in time. As he reached the Doctor, the man's assaults became more direct. "Why the hell don'cha look where you're going?" he demanded. "What are ya, stupid?"

"Urrrr…" the Doctor replied in near-incoherence. He gathered himself up with help from Robin and Sarah. "Um, oh… I'm terribly sorry, Mr…"

"Lieutenant," said the man from the car. "Lieutenant Abrahams. Police."

The Doctor seemed to have recovered very quickly in spite of everything and was dusting himself down. He proffered a hand. "Oh, how d'you do? I'm the Doctor."

Abrahams snorted. "Limey, huh? Figures."

"Oi," Robin interjected. "A little tolerance wouldn't come amiss, you know. I thought abuse of other cultures was illegal and police were supposed to uphold the law."

Oh great, Abrahams thought. They were all Limeys. "Look, pal," he said to Robin gruffly. "I don't have time to stand around here screwing around with a bunch of tourists who Don't even have any road sense. So you just go photograph the local landmarks or whatever it is you people do when you come here and then get your asses on your plane home, and meanwhile stay outta my way."

"Sir?" a voice called from the car.

Abrahams scowled at the Doctor and went to the driver side window. "What is it, Lin?"

"I just got a radio call from Captain Lorimer, Sir," she told him. "We have to get back. It's happened again."

The Doctor was standing right behind Abrahams and the cop almost jumped out of his skin when the Time Lord spoke. "What's happened again?"

Abrahams rounded on the annoying dandy with a fierce expression. "That doesn't concern you," he snapped. "Now get the fuck outta here!" He marched round to the other side of the car and got into the passenger seat. "Let's go, Lin."

Sergeant Lin started driving. "Sir?"

"Yeah?" sighed Abrahams, still unsure of what the hell had just happened with these English jokers outside the general store.

"Who were those guys?" asked Lin.

"Well," said a voice from behind her, "I'm the Doctor and this is Sarah-Jane Smith and Robin Baxter. You must be Sergeant Lin."

Abrahams looked over his shoulder in surprise. "How the hell did you get in here? Get the hell outta my car, you dumb jerk! I swear if I didn't have anything better to do I'd throw the goddamn book at you!"

The woman who sat on the back seat between the two men frowned at the Lieutenant. "We only want to help," she said. "We're good with this sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?" asked Abrahams, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself.

"Mysterious deaths," said the Doctor.

Abrahams was silent. How the hell did they know?

The police station had been chaotic when the Lieutenant's car arrived, and as soon as it did arrive it got worse. Officers wanted to know who the Doctor and his friends were and what they were doing in the station, among them Captain Lorimer. Because no one in the Doctor's party was under arrest it was difficult to ascertain his actual reason for being brought into the police station and the Doctor himself had already been threatened with deportation due to his inability to produce a British passport or any travel documentation. Captain Lorimer had ordered Abrahams to his office and the Doctor, Robin and Sarah had been left to wait while it was decided what should be done with them. In the car, the Doctor had explained to Abrahams and Lin that he was a special investigator with a great deal of experience in the unusual. It had not been a lie even though it had not been the whole truth. He had told Abrahams about his work with international paramilitary organisations over the decades and advised the cop to call a department of the British government designated C19 to check out his credentials. Abrahams hadn't had time and now he had to face his Captain. Lorimer stood hunched over his desk, palms flat on its surface, looming over his subordinate.

"There's been a third murder," Lorimer snapped. "Same as the others. No wounds, no contusions, no abrasions but internal organs turned into soup. It's been six days, Nic, and you haven't even questioned anybody."

"I can't find the connection, Sir," Abrahams protested. "So far the first two victims have nothing in common except the way they were killed. They were different ages, different sexes and different ethnic backgrounds. They didn't know each other, didn't work together, nothing."

"Wrong, Lieutenant," the Captain said, taking a card from his pocket and slapping it on the desk so hard he almost shook it. "They were both members of the Circle, and so was the third victim. An officer removed this card from the third body's pocket and called the number. He was able to find out that all three of them were Circle members."

Abrahams looked down at the card. It had a message about spiritual guidance and a number on it, and he'd remembered seeing a few of them around the city. "The Circle?" he asked. "That bunch of cranks who stick these in phone booths promising a chance to come back from the dead? I already had a hunch they were connected somewhere. I was at a funeral service they were holding yesterday. Couldn't go asking questions without evidence though."

"Well now you have evidence," Lorimer said stoutly. "So get your ass out and ask questions."

Abrahams scrambled out of his chair and was about to leave when he remembered. "What about the three Lime…" He remembered what Robin had said. "The three British tourists I brought in?"

"Get rid of them," Lorimer shrugged. "They're just wasting our time."

Abrahams didn't want to do that. The Doctor had knowledge that might seriously help the investigation. He opened his mouth to protest but was too cowardly. He stepped out of the door just as the phone rang. The shout from inside the office almost shook the building. "Abrahams!"

He rushed in. "Captain?"

"Shut the door," Lorimer snapped and Abrahams obeyed. "I just got a call from the army, who just got a call from the White House, who just got a call from London, who just got a fax from here. One of your British guys is one of the known avatars of a special investigator for the British military, whatever that means, and we've been ordered to ask him politely for his help." The words sounded grudging and bitter. The Captain's authority had been overruled because someone in the ranks had gone over his head. He lowered his voice to a sinister hiss. "This Doctor guy is your responsibility, Lieutenant. Screw this up and I'll have you out of the force faster than Jesus ran out of Gomorrah, clear?"

"Sir," Abrahams nodded and scuttled out of the office, leaving Lorimer to seethe. He smiled inwardly. Good old Lin.

The water was beginning to feel a little cold and Jennifer Rutger was getting uncomfortable. She smiled up at the boss. "I should be getting back to work," she said. "The report on those British people will be coming soon." She moved to disentangle herself from his embrace but his arm held fast and she couldn't move. "What are you doing?" she protested. "I have to get back."

"There's no hurry," smiled the cool grey-haired Englishman in the pool beside her. "I have something to show you. Something that you may find of interest."

His voice had changed during that sentence, becoming deeper and changing from and English accent to American. Jennifer screamed as his body changed too, the hair receding into baldness, the skin turning from white to black and her lover disappearing to leave John Cleaver Shillaker sitting in the pool with his arm around her. "What the hell are you?" Jennifer shrieked.

"I am the future master of the human race!" roared Shillaker. "The new God! Behold, human! Behold my truth!"

A loud mechanical whirr filled the room and Jennifer felt the floor of the pool shaking beneath her feet. She lifted them as the floor split in two and the halves receded, allowing access to the massive tank below. She screamed again as something moved in the watery depths and couldn't take her eyes off the near-shapeless shadow creeping toward the surface. The giant squid or octopus or whatever it was burst up, splashing water in every direction and spattering the tiles. Shillaker released Jennifer and in that moment she kicked off the wall of the pool and tried to swim away, but she wasn't quick enough. The creature's tentacles curled outward and wrapped themselves around both her legs. She thrashed about wildly in the water, screaming and struggling and fighting to escape, and Shillaker watched calmly as the Nestene monster dragged her below the surface to drown.

_**To be continued...**_


	2. Episode 2

**EPISODE TWO**

Jennifer was dead. The physical avatar of the Nestene Consciousness had killed her, absorbing as it had done so her memories and knowledge. It could deposit them into its newest Auton, the Auton that already looked just like Jennifer and now stood naked beside the pool. Also naked, the Auton that was the mouthpiece of the Consciousness, that could switch between the appearances of the man who ran a manufacturing business providing shop mannequins and John Cleaver Shillaker, the leader of a religious cult that promised immortality to its members, stepped out of the pool. It was wearing its Shillaker form. "Get dressed," Shillaker told the Auton that had now become Jennifer Rutger. Without speaking, just as the true Jennifer had undressed without speaking, the synthetic woman picked up all of the clothes on the floor and sorted through them. It put on the briefs, the bra, the tights and the camisole. Already fed memories by the all-assimilating Nestene, the new Jennifer shrugged into the blouse and buttoned it up, leaving the top two open to expose the camisole slightly, then put on the skirt and buckled the belt before stepping into the shoes. Her hair was dry and perfect. She had not been in the pool as the original Jennifer had. She put on Jennifer‟s watch and shoes and then stepped closer to the body. The real Jennifer‟s corpse lay on the tiles, face down, body twisted. Her skin was almost blue and there was considerable bruising all over her naked body. Naked but for a few things. The new Jennifer stooped, removed the earrings and the key and chain from the body, dried them off using one of the towels on the rack and put them in the appropriate locations on her own form. "I am ready?" she asked Shillaker. She sounded exactly like Jennifer.

"Almost," Shillaker told her. "Makeup."

Jennifer picked up the smart suit jacket that the original Jennifer had worn and checked the breast pocket. She found the compact, flicked it up and looked in the mirror. Her plain lips, the same colour as the rest of her face, flushed the cerise of the original's lipstick, pale lilac flashes mimicking eyeshadow formed on her eyelids and her lashes grew and thickened and took on the deep aubergine colour of Jennifer‟s mascara. A touch of subtle colour flushed the cheeks and she looked at Shillaker. "Now?"

"Now," he answered simply, and the automatic door swung open behind her. She left and it closed again. The door, like almost everything else in the building, was made of plastic and animated by the powerful telekinesis of the Nestene Consciousness. Once the door was closed, Shillaker crossed the room to another door. He would only have a few hours, but he could easily be back here in time. The other door swung obediently open as he approached it and he stepped into the secret lift as it closed. The lift started to go down.

Satisfied with its work so far, the giant Nestene cephalopod retracted its tentacles and sank back under the water, descending into its tank. The concealed hatch closed over it, once again giving the harmless appearance of a normal swimming pool.

**III**

**LIVING WITH MONSTERS**

The message reached out into infinity, stretching across the universe like a piece of elastic or rubber band and finding its way through the darkness as easily as a blind man, his instincts heightened by his inability to see and his sense of direction stable, firm and reliable. Millions of miles it travelled in just a matter of minutes, such being the speed of thought, and in a moment short enough to have been nothing at all one mind touched another. The second of the Nestenes, curled up in the heart of a star, holding the urging, bursting would-be supernova back from its final fate with powerful but strained telekinesis, heard the cry of the first and prepared itself. The arrival of the first Nestene on Earth, complete and intact, a single unit, had been accidental and once it had been stranded there it had made preparations first to defend itself and second to summon a mate. Now the male heard the call of the female and was ready to answer it. He had heard her before, crying that she had landed on a strange world and did not know what to do. She was young, only just an adult specimen and bordering on her seeding stage, and when he heard her cry he longed for her. But he waited, knowing that the time was not yet ready. The planet possessed a civilisation of sorts and that civilisation possessed a technology that could be dangerous. But it could also be used. The people of the planet, the humans as they called each other, had made a good material for manipulation. The male Nestene that waited in space searched the memories of all those who had gone before it and found that the Consciousness had attempted to establish itself on this planet, this 'Earth' before, and had suffered failure on a number of occasions. But it had found whilst it was there the Substance – the range of materials that humans called plastics. It could use this material. It was malleable and sensitive to temperature and pressure, and under the influences of either or both it could quite easily be shaped to appear as absolutely anything. There were lots of plastics on Earth. Plastic materials could be found in every domicile inhabited by these silly bipeds. They were just asking for trouble. And now that the female had told the male she was in readiness, and with her the humans' world, they were going to get it. The Nestene male divided itself into energy units and sealed them into the small cells it had woven from the raw materials of the star in which it had lain and then finally ceased to exert its fantastic willpower over its makeshift home. The star erupted magnificently in the sky, its gases igniting and creating a blaze of colour and the funnel of air around it, also woven by its guest, guiding the small meteorites containing its deadly essence toward the small blue planet where resided the anxious and yearning female.

"Autons," the Doctor said to Lieutenant Abrahams as they looked down at the body that slumped in an armchair in the small living room. "And Autons without the capacity to vaporise their victims, as yet." The Time Lord stepped back away

from the body and looked around the room. Very little had been disturbed; the clock and pictures still hung on the walls, the porcelain ornaments stood intact on the mantelpiece and the television set in the corner, still on and showing the news, was undamaged and unshaken. The coffee table, however, lay smashed on the floor as if it had been violently, or perhaps clumsily if one possessed sufficient force to cause such damage accidentally, kicked over, its veneer peeled and its wooden legs splintered. The front door was the same. Someone – or some_thing _– had crashed that as a means to get in. There had been a huge burn around the area of the door's lock and the lock itself was melted almost to nothing. A few things in the small hallway had been disturbed and some black charring marks on the hall carpet and the banister rail of the stairs showed the extent of power available to the weapon that had been used on the door.

Abrahams stared at the body. Externally there appeared to be nothing wrong with it but for a burn on the shirt, and the man looked as if he'd just fallen asleep, but the man was dead and according to an on-the-spot medical examination he was the same as the others. Naturally, like the others, he'd need a post-mortem to be sure, but it was a foregone conclusion. "Autons," Abrahams repeated the word as if it sounded disgusting to him. He rounded on the Doctor. "And who the hell are the Autons? Some sort of terrorist group?"

"Worse," the Doctor answered, knowing that it would be a struggle to make the cop believe the fantastic story he was about to tell. "Autons are not alive, not organic, not natural. They have no soul, no spirit, no personality. They are plastic automatons, existing purely as the puppet soldiers of the Nestene Consciousness."

Abrahams was becoming irritated. "What the hell are you talking about, plastic automatons? You're saying that instead of people this guy was murdered by… dolls?"

The Doctor nodded. "Exactly. Dolls designed and built for precisely that purpose. The Nestene Consciousness is a gestalt entity whose only corporeal form manifests as a race of gigantic cephalopods. The cephalopods survive by absorbing chemical compounds, most of which humans would find toxic to ingest, such as oil and dioxins. When the supply runs out the Nestene avatars migrate, finding new sources. Earth is rich in the substances that make the perfect Nestene supper and the dinner gong is sounding."

Robin interjected from behind him. "So there's one of these Nestene things here in Chicago, then, Doctor?"

"Of course there is," Sarah chided him. "Twit. Doctor, if some giant monster burst in here and shot that poor man…" She indicated the body in the chair. "Wouldn't it have been noticed coming down the road or something?"

"Not if it looked at the time like a perfectly ordinary human being," replied the Doctor. "The Nestene Consciousness is one of the universe's most powerful and talented telekineticists. Its mental power over matter is phenomenal and it has a natural affinity for plastics. It chooses plastics for two reasons: first that they're common on the worlds where the chemical food they need is also common, one often being a by-product of the other; second that they're flexible and malleable and can be moulded into any shape. Plastic is used to make mannequins of the kind used by most department stores for display. Imagine," he said, turning to face Abrahams, "if those mannequins could spring to life and go on a killing spree."

Abrahams snorted. "You're crazy. Killer store dummies running on Squid Power? I don't know why I'm even listening to you jackasses."

"Because you haven't a choice," Robin pointed out matter-of-factly. "Your boss said you had to."

"And boy is he grateful that I can't put a bullet up his ass," Abrahams retorted. Then he continued with the point of his investigation. "Even if I believe this, what the hell does it have to do with the Circle?"

Sarah had guessed it. One thing about spending time with the Doctor was that it opened a person's mind to new ideas, allowed for the chance that the impossible could be possible and therefore made a person capable of coming to clear, sound conclusions without floundering within the limitations of established human knowledge. "The healings," she said slowly. "People walking after being crippled for years and John Shillaker's promise that the dead will come back to life… they're copies, aren't they, the healed people? They're plastic dummies made to look like the original people and put in their place, manipulated by this Nestene." She looked at the Doctor. "You said the Nestene Consciousness was a gestalt, and if it's telekinetic it's also almost certainly telepathic. Does it drain out and collect the memories of its victims and then seed them in these Autons?"

The Doctor felt his whole body fill with warmth and both his hearts swell with pride. "You've got the Nestene Consciousness to a tee, Sarah-Jane," he beamed. "I see my influence rubbed off on you."

"Oi," Sarah hissed, elbowing the Doctor sharply and suddenly remembering that as well as wonderful the Doctor could also be extremely annoying. Inwardly though she knew he was right and was extremely pleased with herself for figuring the Autons out.

Robin was on the ball too. "Doctor," he asked. "Could just anybody be an Auton?"

"Ostensibly," the Doctor nodded.

"Oh," Robin said, looking a little worried. "Only earlier on when you were looking at the paper you said that something wasn't quite right about Shillaker."

The Doctor looked up slowly, his eyes widening. "Of course!" he exclaimed. "The Nestene Consciousness usually creates a Master Auton with higher functions than the normal troops and servants to use as its spokesman and emissary, allowing the Consciousness to literally have eyes and ears in the community. Shillaker will almost certainly be one. He'll be using the religion to draw people in, and instead of being 'healed' as promised the unfortunate victims will donate their memories to the Consciousness and be killed, to be replaced by identical Auton replicas soon after."

"Right," grunted Abrahams. "Well let's go arrest Shillaker for conspiracy to murder, seeing as you're saying he, or whoever is pulling his strings, sent the killer here, and then we can get him checked out by a doctor and see if he's made of plastic." He didn't believe it for a second but at least if he carried this through he could be seen to be doing something. "Lin!"

Sergeant Lin popped her head around the living room door. "Sir?"

"Shillaker," Abrahams said. "We're runnin' him in."

"Yessir," nodded Lin. "I'll go start the car." And she was gone again.

Abrahams turned back to the Doctor. "I suppose I gotta take you along?"

The Doctor grinned. "If there's room in your car."

He knew that there was.

"Molly?"

Molly's eyes flickered open as Lee's voice penetrated her light sleep. She looked up at him and smiled sweetly. "Hey honey," she murmured. "Did I sleep long?"

Lee shook his head, smiling softly back at her. "Maybe a half-hour. I wanted to ask you something."

"Go ahead," Molly told him, propping herself up on one elbow to face him eye to eye.

Lee looked into her eyes and for a moment was lost in their deep green hue. He blinked slowly and felt something strange happening inside his head. He felt himself forgetting. "D'you think it's strange I can walk now?" he asked his lover.

"Everything the Lord does is strange, baby," Molly said, her eyes glimmering. "He works in mysterious ways, as they say. I'm just glad the miracle came."

Lee was frowning. He was starting to feel that Molly was strange, that she was unfamiliar to him somehow. "But you don't think I've changed at all? As a person?"

Molly shook her head, her natural auburn ringlets drifting in the summer breeze. "Great dad, great lover, sweet, kind, caring, honest, understanding… no, I don't think anything's missing."

The fingers of Lee's left hand dropped away on an invisible hinge and using his integrated Auton weapon he killed her. He had forgotten any love that the true Lee Waters had every harboured for this woman. She was stupid. She should have suspected him. She did not suspect him and that was good news for the Nestene Consciousness. Its discretion had so far been sufficient to prevent its discovery and to allow it to infiltrate an average human household and kill without suspicion. While humans did not suspect their lovers, family members, workmates and friends of being Autons it was easy for Autons to simply kill them. An intelligent being would doubt, and his doubt would save him. They were fools. They deserved death.

The test was not complete. There were two more subjects. Lee stood up, stepped over the smoking corpse of his partner and went inside to kill the children.

The Circle gathered at the cemetery once again around Carl Rutger's grave. Shillaker as always gave a leading performance. The hot sun beat down on them all, shone off Shillaker's head and his sunglasses and made everyone‟s skin prickle. Everyone human, that is. "Children of God," the cult's leader boomed. "I have shown you miracles. I have taken a cripple and made him walk. But I have promised you more than that. I have promised you that death itself can be reversed, and now you will see it happen. I give you Jennifer Rutger, the daughter of our fallen brother Carl."

The bizarre ritual of swapping places passed silently, and when Jennifer Rutger stood in what had been Shillaker's place she said, "Children of God," sticking to the traditional formality. "My father was old and had cancer. It was inevitable that he would die. When he was alive he chose the Circle as his path to God, and I did not. He asked me to convert but I chose against it. Like he used to be before he converted, I was Jewish, but when he died I realised that he believed more passionately in the Lord than the religion of his family had ever made him do, and I began to wonder. I came to Reverend Shillaker and I asked him for guidance, and what he told me made me sure that all my life I had been wrong. He told me that the Lord requires a sacrifice in order to perform a resurrection on Earth, but not a sacrifice of life; more the sacrifice of a way of life, the choice of Him over another path. Today I give myself to God through the Circle and hope that through my sacrifice his promise shall be kept." Jennifer took a photograph from her breast pocket and passed it to the person next to her, moving clockwise. The photo was passed clockwise around the congregational ring and came back to her. Everyone had seen it, a black and white print of a fit, cheerful, handsome chap in his mid-twenties. Carl Rutger as a young man. Everyone in the Circle knew Carl. He had been bald, wrinkly and overweight when he had died. Jennifer exchanged places with Shillaker again, passing him the photo as she did. Once he was back in place, Shillaker took out a small petrol lighter from his suit jacket and set light to the picture, throwing it on the grave to curl up, turn black and crumble to ashes.

The ground trembled.

"In the name of God," roared Shillaker. "Arise, Carl Rutger! Arise!"

There was an audible gasp from the congregation as a pale hand rose up from the dirt that covered the grave and pressed down hard on the earth, pushing upward. A moment later a head emerged – a young, attractive head – the head of the man in the photograph. A neck and shoulders followed and after a few minutes a young, fit, handsome and naked Carl Rutger stood atop his own grave. Shillaker rushed forward with a silken shroud and wrapped it around Rutger's slender form. The congregation erupted into applause. Carl Rutger was alive and young again! "Now you see the power of miracles!" Shillaker shouted. "And you must all share in the glory. To do this, you must all share in the sacrifice. Show me your hands, Children of God! Who among you will be baptised into the true faith?"

Every hand in the Circle, excluding those of Shillaker and the Rutgers, was raised.

**IV**

**BAPTISM OF FIRE**

"Red sky at night," the Doctor mused, "shepherds' delight."

The sky certainly was red, a blazing red as if it were on fire. As they looked out of the car's windows the Doctor, Robin and Sarah seemed as one to regard the apparent sunset as beautiful and serene, the calm before the storm.

"It's not night," said Robin. "I reset my watch by the police station clock earlier. It's 4:28 PM. Mid-afternoon. Way too early for a summer sunset, even in Chicago." He craned his neck to look up a little further, struggling in the cramped space to avoid pressing uncomfortably onto Sarah's shoulder. "What's that?"

The Doctor couldn't see it, but he knew the answer. "A meteorite," he said. "Should be a few more too. They're pods containing the elemental essence of another Nestene host. Once they've all arrived all the Autons that are ready will be activated and sent to collect them. They'll be taken to the same place the Nestene host already here is using as its base and brought together to merge into the singular form."

"The squid thing?" asked Robin, purely for confirmation.

"The squid thing," the Doctor confirmed.

"There are a few other meteorites," Robin observed, verifying the Doctor's earlier prediction as he watched the deep pink bubbles of light streak through the crimson sky drawing deep orange tails of flame behind them. "I can't tell how many there are or what direction they're heading in."

Suddenly there was a loud whoosh like violent lightning and one of the meteorites rushed past at low altitude. It smashed into a skyscraper and destroyed it, the fireball scattering concrete, metal and glass in all directions. Lin swerved the car as the road shook beneath it and the Doctor turned to glance out of the rear windscreen as the ground was shaken again by an explosion. "One of them has landed," he announced.

"How close are they?" demanded Lieutenant Abrahams. "Can they get near us?"

Robin tried his hardest to look around. "I don't think there are any particularly close," he speculated.

As if to mock him, another ear-splitting roar rang out and a meteorite tore overhead from behind the car, appearing in front of it, low enough for the heat it was radiating to make the skin of the car's passengers sizzle, and streaked down to touch the ground. "It's gonna crash into the road!" hollered Abrahams. "Hit the brakes, Lin! Hit the brakes!"

Lin had already thought of that, and the car spun out of control as the brakes went on hard to keep it from sliding straight into the meteorite's path of destruction. The meteorite smashed down in an explosion that shook the ground like an earthquake. Still spinning, the car skidded toward the gaping hole it had made in the road and the seething ball of flame within. More fireballs thundered overhead, explosions of their respective impacts sounding one after the other like the beating of the drums that sounded death. Lin kept her foot flat on the brake pedal even though she knew there was no more she could do. "I want you to know I always respected you, sir!" she howled as the car closed in on the edge of the crater…

…And came to an abrupt halt. About six inches of the car's front protruded over the rim of the hole and quickly everyone got out just to be on the safe side. All of the other cars on the street had stopped too in order to avoid the fatal crash, some had been unlucky and lay upturned and burning in the pit at whose centre sat a translucent pink sphere no more than a foot in diameter. Abrahams could barely believe it. "How does such a little thing cause so much destruction?" he breathed.

"It's the force behind it that causes the destruction," the Doctor answered as he appeared at the cop's shoulder and looked with him into the pit. "That sphere was propelled here by a supernova."

"You say it‟s got part of that Nestene thing in it?"

"Yes."

"What if we got it and got rid of it?"

"I don't follow you."

Abrahams looked up at the Doctor with a slight expression of annoyance. "If we take part of it and get rid of it, it can't ever be complete, right?"

The Doctor saw what he was getting at. "And while it's incomplete it's relatively harmless. Yes, I see your point, but I think the Nestene that's already here and complete will already have considered that possibility." Looking around as if to confirm his suspicion, the Doctor found himself glancing at the window of _Marshalls_. He had caught the faintest glimmer of movement in his periphery and identified the shop's window as its source. One of the mannequins, a tall, slender female wearing a stylish one-piece halterneck swimsuit in black with a gold ring detail between the breast cups was pointing a finger at him. He turned from the window, his expression urgent. "Run!" he shouted. "Everyone, run away as fast as you can!" And as if to lead by example, he began haring down the street away from the crater.

Sarah and Robin didn't need to be told twice. They were already sprinting after the Doctor when the store window shattered. Left without any specific reason as to why they should run, the cops were still standing beside their car.

John Shillaker sang as the men and women of the Circle walked willingly into the pool. _Wade In The Water _was his choice of song and he clapped his hands loudly as he roared the lyrics at the top of his deep voice. It was an old Spiritual from the days of the slave trade and he sang loudly and proudly as though he were the leader of some group of slaves that had been lucky enough to escape to freedom. He felt it suited his purpose admirably and encouraged the unsuspecting victims into the pool. He stood at the pool's edge with a bathing-suited and stunning Jennifer Rutger at his side. Of course Jennifer was not going to get into the pool, but as with all religions Shillaker knew image meant everything. Her dark blue swimsuit had a satin sheen and clung to every curve, distracting the mortals with the envy of the women and the lust of the men so that they would never dream they were being led to the slaughter. The only other thing she wore was the key to the Upper Office around her neck. Like Shillaker, she had come in with the Circle members via the secret entrance, but she would dress nicely and return to her office when the work was done. There were fifty people in the Circle now, and once their Auton replacements were activated then the religion could spread its spores throughout Chicago. More baptisms like this one, especially with the help of the Breeder Nestene that was on its way, would make more 'converts' and spread the religion further, out across Illinois. Soon the whole state would be an Auton state, and those Autons, disguised as humans and suspected of nothing, would move into the surrounding states. There would be baptisms every day, and in a year the Nestenes would rule America. And America, at the height of its power, could rule the world. "Wade in the water!" Shillaker sang, clapping hard and swaying. The converts marched in and eventually the pool was full and only Shillaker, Lee Waters, Carl and Jennifer stood outside it. Lee's lover and children were dead and disposed of and already his house rang with the sound of Auton Molly's singing and the Auton children's laughter.

Shillaker stopped singing. "Well, now," he boomed. "Look at you all! Aren't you all a beautiful sight for the eyes of our Almighty Lord? Gathered all together in your bathing suits, the short and the tall, the thin and the fat, the old and the young, the black and the white and everyone else all together as a single unit, gathered as one for a single purpose: the purpose of becoming immortal." He stuck out his fist in a gesture of fantastic power. "Who wants to be baptised in the name of the Lord?"

The crowd in the swimming pool cheered and wolf-whistled their assent. Jennifer stepped forward, resplendent and gorgeous in her tiny tight suit, mousy waves bouncing off her shoulders. "Looks like everybody's ready," she grinned. "Time to get this party started!" And she vanished to the back of the room.

Shillaker grinned, but this time the grin seemed sinister, full of villainous intent, and it made some of his parishioners uneasy. "More like time to pull the plug on this little party," he snapped. Then he started laughing.

Some people in the pool were confused. Others became angry, wanting to know if and why Shillaker had been making fools of them. "What the hell's the matter with you?" demanded one man.

"We came here to be baptised!" said another.

"Is it still going to happen?" asked a woman.

Shillaker, still grinning, shook his head slowly. "Oh no, ma'am," he intoned verbosely. "There‟s been a change of plan. The baptism is off and the resurrection is gonna come just a little early."

People started to make for the pool's edge to get out, but it was too late. Jennifer Rutger reappeared, holding a long tubular metal bar attached to the wall by a cable. It had a rubber grip. The converts panicked, fighting each other to be first out of the pool. Jennifer used the chaos and the delay caused by it. She jammed the rod into the pool and electrocuted them all.

"Where are we going?" yelled Robin to the Doctor over the noise of more crashing meteorites, fighting as much to be heard as he was fighting for breath. "Are we just running away aimlessly or do we have a destination?"

"We have to get back to the police station!" the Doctor called back equally breathlessly. "We can make a call from there to bring in some reinforcements."

"The army, you mean?"

"A special department of it equipped for dealing with these situations. They've got a machine that I designed a long time ago for use in circumstances like this."

Robin got it. The Doctor had met these plastic things before. As much had been clear when they'd been inspecting that dead body and the two-hearted alien was talking to the gruff American cop about them. Obviously the Doctor had used his superior alien knowledge to defeat them, and somehow been able to pass that knowledge onto MI5 or somebody, who kept it in case it should one day again be needed. Robin glanced over his shoulder, hoping that Sarah hadn't faltered. She was close behind him and catching up, but with his eye not on the path before him he tripped, falling face-down onto the pavement. He felt a hand reach down for him. "It's okay, Sarah," he reassured her. "I'm fine, I think." He rolled over and the blood drained from his face. The hand didn't belong to Sarah-Jane. It belonged to a mannequin, a black female one wearing a sharp two piece skirt suit, ruffled blouse, sheer tights and black heeled shoes. She had no proper eyes and Robin could see the hard line across her neck where her head had been screwed onto her body. He screamed and shut his eyes. He heard a click and a kind of buzz and he waited.

Suddenly there was a clattering sound and something fell down to his left. He felt a hand reach for him again and opened his eyes in relief as this one helped him up. "What did you do to it?" he gasped.

"Ran into its back at full pelt," replied Sarah. "A plastic dummy isn't very heavy and will fall down with a good shove. Now come on!" And she ran, pulling him behind her.

The black Auton woman stood up and Robin risked glancing back one more time, being lucky not to fall. The fingers of one of the mannequin's hands had dropped away from the hand proper on assumedly an invisible hinge and there was a hollow gap in the member, assumedly leading to a mechanism inside the arm. Inside the gap there was a dark blue disc like a crystal eye, about the size of, in this country, a dime. It flashed suddenly, making a cracking sound, and Robin instinctively ducked as a chunk of masonry from a nearby building exploded and scattered everywhere. Robin could hear more windows smashing and as he glanced around more Autons were filling the streets. There seemed to be hundreds of them.

"They're mobilising their forces," the Doctor voiced Robin's thought. "This will be the special guard prepared to recover the energy units of the second Nestene and protect them. They'll collect the units up and assemble the ultimate entity. We haven't much time."

"I don't think I can run anymore, Doctor," panted Sarah.

"Nor me," agreed Robin. Both came to a halt.

The Doctor looked around. "We need a car." He spotted a yellow taxi parked across the road and sprinted for it. The door wasn't locked, but as he pulled it open the driver fell out. He was dead. The Doctor glanced at the windscreen. There wasn't one. It had been shattered. Following the line of the street the Doctor could see the mannequin approaching. A white male wearing a vest and Bermuda shorts, its hand splayed open and at lethal capacity. The Doctor rolled the taxi driver onto the pavement as quickly as he could and dived into the car. Two more Autons were marching toward him behind the one in Bermuda shorts. The key was still in the ignition and the Doctor started the car, charging right into the path of the deadly Auton weapons. The mannequins responded with a chorus of fire but the car was fast and the Doctor passed it easily under the blasts. He smashed into the Autons, breaking them up into their separate body parts and scattering them across the road. Arms and legs twitched and one hand managed to perform an _Addams Family _crawl, dragging the severed arm back to the torso from which it had been disconnected. The Doctor brought the taxi about and pulled it up on the other side of the road where his companions waited. "Get in!" he snapped.

Robin and Sarah dived into the taxi and it screeched off down the road. Sarah gawked. "Watch out, Doctor!" she shrieked.

The Doctor swerved, but it was too late. The blast from the four Autons ahead hit the bonnet and there was a blast from within. The car spun out of control and careered down the road on its impetus only. "Everyone out!" the Doctor shouted, pushing open the car door. "And then run for your lives!"

"If we jump out now we'll run right into those things," protested Sarah.

"And if we don‟t we'll all be killed in the car when it stops," replied the Doctor. "At least if we separate one or two of us might stand a chance."

The other doors opened and everyone jumped out. The car spun toward the four Autons that had disabled it and smashed into them, pushing them back into the path of several others. A moment later the taxi exploded and the fireball scattered molten plastic and Auton fingers and toes everywhere. More Autons filled the streets though, and it looked as though the Doctor and his companions were surrounded. "We're screwed, aren't we?" breathed Robin.

"Not while I got a hole in my ass!" snapped Lieutenant Abrahams as the police car pulled up behind them. "Get the hell in here, you jerks! You wanna get killed?"

"We have to get to the police station," the Doctor demanded urgently.

The car had already raced off. "I'm on it, Doc," Abrahams snapped. "Jesus. What do we do when we get there? Barricade the doors and call the National Guard?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Barricade the doors and call UNIT," he said. "Tell them we need Nestene defence equipment and to activate it over the radio. They need to hijack every frequency in America to make this work."

"It's gonna be a tall order, Doc," said Abrahams.

"Well you'd better hope they fill it," retorted the Doctor. "Or bang goes humanity."

The pool was empty, but for the Nestene creature that floated buoyantly in its waters. Its Auton servants stood around it, ready to receive their new orders. Orders that were voiced through John Shillaker. "The Other is here," he beamed. "He has arrived and the Autons are collecting the energy units. They will bring them here, to the factory, and we shall activate them. They shall be merged and we shall have a mate. Then the breeding can begin." He looked at his underlings. "Prepare the machine."

The others walked over to the back wall and as they did the tiles folded away like a concertina to reveal a small alcove in which sat the machine that could turn a collection of small meteorites into a giant Nestene squid and transpose it into the pool.

"Stop the car," the Doctor snapped. "I have to get out."

"Are you crazy?" yelled Abrahams. "Those plastic bastards will blow your goddamn head off soon as look at you!"

"I have to stop the Circle!" the Doctor snapped. "If they survive this attack, and I have a feeling they've made provision for it, then they could just start all this up again. You get to the station and do what I said. Call UNIT and tell them to prepare for an Auton attack."

Abrahams nodded to Lin and the car screeched to a halt. "You don't even know where Shillaker's guys are."

"I've an idea," said the Doctor. "We just passed a plastics and textiles factory." He got out of the car, slammed the door and ran like an Olympic athlete.

The car started up again and sped on.

The male Nestene materialised in the pool beside the female, its tentacles writhing and shaking. It seemed all a quiver, nervous or excited somehow, and it also seemed to communicate with the female for a moment, as if going through the formal motions of chatting her up before mounting her. This took a good fifteen minutes and then the female transmitted the news to Shillaker. "An alien is here!" Shillaker shouted in anger. "One who has dared to challenge us before. It has knowledge of the weapon and plans to use it. We must all go into the water!"

Jennifer, Carl and Lee marched toward the pool, Shillaker behind them. The weapon that fried Nestene brains used the power of ultrasound and sound didn't carry in quite the same way underwater. They would be safe there.

"Shillaker!" a voice roared loudly.

Shillaker whirled round in surprise. He found himself facing a man in a velvet frockcoat and slacks, sporting long brown hair and carrying a small device that must've had sonic properties because it had opened the Upper Office door. How had he bluffed his way past the factory staff? Shillaker didn't care. "Doctor!" he growled. "We know all about you. You are our enemy…" He raised his voice and hollered at the top of it. "And we shall destroy you!" He raised his right hand and the fingers dropped away to reveal the devastating Auton weapon.

The Doctor cut in his sonic screwdriver. "Not today, I think!" he replied firmly. "I'm not having one single Auton or Nestene survive this little shindig."

Shillaker was doubled over as if in pain and screaming at the effects of the ultrasound. So the Doctor had brought the weapon with him. It was tiny, though, a mere irritation to the Nestenes. The other Autons in the room were floundering also, but soon the Nestenes would regain control and he would be vaporised. Shillaker's own weapon _could _vaporise. "So that's the best you can do, is it, Doctor? That's what you came here for?" he gurgled. "Your tiny little device won't hold us back for long."

"It's held you back long enough already," the Doctor said. "None of you have made it into the pool, and the Nestenes are in too much of a state to sink below the water." He reached into his coat and pulled out a transistor radio. "I only hope my friends have made it in time."

He put the radio on the floor of the pool room, switched it on and walked casually back out through the door he'd used to come in. The ultrasonic shriek of the UNIT transmission echoed in the open, tiled room, ringing off every panel and making the Nestenes shake. Every Auton in America, including Shillaker, the Rutgers, Lee, Molly and the kids suddenly fell to its knees, wailing and screeching.

And dying.

**EPILOGUE: **_**A New Series of Adventures**_

"So we'll be going back to the eleventh, then?" asked Robin.

The Doctor pushed the key into the lock and opened the TARDIS door. "Of course," he smiled blithely as he stepped in, and Robin and Sarah filed in behind him. "All I do is press the Fast Return Switch and the TARDIS will return exactly to where – and when – it was before it last took off."

"Sounds straightforward enough," Robin nodded, feeling he'd become more open-minded during the course of this adventure and that aliens and time travel weren't such mad ideas after all.

Sarah laughed. "Well, I just hope it's as good in practice as it is in theory!"

The Doctor looked offended as they entered the console room. "Now now, Sarah-Jane," he chided in an avuncular fashion, reminding her of his third self. "I know this old TARDIS has had her moments, but all in all she's been faithful to me for a long time. And look at all the fun you and I used to have!"

Sarah looked at him with a sad smile. "How could I forget?"

"Care for some more?" the Doctor beamed.

"Why not?" replied Sarah with a little more cheer. "I'm on holiday."

The Doctor was elated. He glanced at the third member of the party. "Robin?"

Robin wasn't sure what to say. This alien was inviting him on a trip through time and space! He could go anywhere, see anything. His mind was reeling, but he reined in his enthusiasm and made a sham attempt at casually saying, "Well, as Sarah's coming…"

"Excellent!" beamed the Doctor. "No need for the Fast Return Switch then." He pulled a different lever to set his ship in motion. "By the way, Robin," he said. "Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young Bono?"

_**This is the second in a series of original adventures featuring the Eighth Doctor, beginning with POLARITY. The next adventure in this series will be INVASION OF BLACKHEART.**_


End file.
